Top Science News

December 18, 2025

Top Headlines

Astronomers Just Watched a Black Hole Twist Spacetime

Dec. 18, 2025 Astronomers have detected spacetime itself being dragged and twisted by a spinning black hole for the first time. The discovery, seen during a star’s violent destruction, confirms a prediction made over 100 years ago and reveals new clues about ...

The Western U.S. Tried to Stop Wildfires and It Backfired

Dec. 18, 2025 Much of the western U.S. is overdue for wildfire, with decades of suppression allowing fuel to build up across millions of hectares. Researchers estimate that 74% of the region is in a fire deficit, meaning far more land needs to burn to restore ...

Your Body Feels Cold in Two Different Ways

Dec. 18, 2025 Researchers have uncovered that the body uses different molecular systems to sense cold in the skin versus internal organs. This explains why surface chills feel very different from cold experienced deep inside the ...

The Gear Meant to Protect Firefighters May Carry Hidden Dangers

Dec. 18, 2025 Firefighter turnout gear is designed to shield first responders from extreme heat and danger, but new research suggests it may also introduce chemical exposures. A U.S. study found that brominated flame retardants are present across multiple layers ...

A Hidden T Cell Switch Could Make Cancer Immunotherapy Work for More People

Dec. 18, 2025 Scientists have discovered that T cell receptors activate through a hidden spring-like motion that had never been seen before. This breakthrough may help explain why immunotherapy works for some cancers and how it could be improved for ...

Scientists Spent 10 Years Chasing a Particle That Wasn’t There

Dec. 18, 2025 After a decade of painstaking measurements, scientists have delivered a major plot twist in particle physics: a long-hypothesized “mystery particle” likely doesn’t exist. Using the MicroBooNE experiment at Fermilab, researchers analyzed ...

Mystery of King Tut’s Jars Solved? Yale Researchers Find Opium Clues

Dec. 18, 2025 Traces of opium found inside an ancient alabaster vase suggest drug use was common in ancient Egypt, not rare or accidental. The discovery raises the possibility that King Tut’s famous jars once held opiates valued enough to be buried with ...

Young Adults Are Using Cannabis to Sleep at Alarming Rates

Dec. 18, 2025 More than 20% of young adults say they use cannabis or alcohol to fall asleep, with cannabis leading by a wide margin. Researchers warn this strategy can backfire, disrupting sleep quality and increasing the risk of long-term sleep and substance-use ...

A Flesh-eating Fly Once Eradicated Is Moving Back Toward the U.S.

Dec. 18, 2025 California researchers are preparing for the possible return of the New World screwworm, a parasitic fly that feeds on living flesh and once devastated U.S. livestock. By monitoring traps and educating veterinarians and farmers, they hope to stop ...

AI Detects Cancer but It’s Also Reading Who You Are

Dec. 17, 2025 AI tools designed to diagnose cancer from tissue samples are quietly learning more than just disease patterns. New research shows these systems can infer patient demographics from pathology slides, leading to biased results for certain groups. The ...

This Tiny Protein Helps Control How Hungry You Feel

Dec. 17, 2025 Researchers have identified a previously overlooked protein that helps regulate appetite and energy use in the body. This “helper” protein supports a key system that decides whether the body burns energy or stores it, and when it does not ...

Scientists Rewired Down Syndrome Brain Circuits by Restoring a Missing Molecule

Dec. 17, 2025 A missing brain molecule may be disrupting neural wiring in Down syndrome, according to new research. Replacing it in adult mice rewired brain circuits and improved brain flexibility, challenging the ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:43am EST

A Quantum Mystery That Stumped Scientists for Decades Is Solved

Dec. 17, 2025 A long-standing physics mystery has been solved with the discovery of emergent photon-like behavior inside a strange quantum material. The finding confirms a true 3D quantum spin liquid and unlocks a ...

He Ate a Hamburger and Died Hours Later. Doctors Found a Shocking Cause

Dec. 17, 2025 A rare tick-borne allergy linked to red meat has now been confirmed as deadly for the first time. A healthy New Jersey man collapsed and died hours after eating beef, with later testing revealing a ...

A New Test Could Reveal Alzheimer’s Before Symptoms Appear

Dec. 17, 2025 Scientists at Northern Arizona University are developing a promising new way to detect Alzheimer’s disease earlier than ever before—by tracking how the brain uses sugar. Using tiny particles in ...

A Hidden Star Found Where Dust Shouldn’t Exist

Dec. 17, 2025 A mysterious cloud of ultra-hot dust around Kappa Tucanae A may finally have an explanation: a hidden companion star. The star’s extreme orbit carries it straight through the dust zone, strongly ...

A Loud Minority Makes the Internet Look Far More Toxic Than It Is

Dec. 17, 2025 People think online platforms are overflowing with toxic and misleading content, but the reality is far calmer. A small group of highly active users creates most of the harm, while the majority ...

Scientists Reveal Why Some Brains Stop Growing Too Soon

Dec. 17, 2025 Researchers used miniature human brains grown in the lab to uncover why certain genetic mutations lead to abnormally small brains. Changes in actin disrupted the orientation of early brain cell ...

Scientists Reveal a 1.5-Million-Year-Old Human Face

Dec. 17, 2025 Scientists have digitally reconstructed the face of a 1.5-million-year-old Homo erectus fossil from Ethiopia, uncovering an unexpectedly primitive appearance. While its braincase fits with classic ...

This 8,000-Year-Old Art Shows Math Before Numbers Existed

Dec. 16, 2025 Over 8,000 years ago, early farming communities in northern Mesopotamia were already thinking mathematically—long before numbers were written down. By closely studying Halafian pottery, researchers ...

Ramanujan’s 100-Year-Old Pi Formula Is Still Revealing the Universe

Dec. 16, 2025 Ramanujan’s elegant formulas for calculating pi, developed more than a century ago, have unexpectedly resurfaced at the heart of modern physics. Researchers at IISc discovered that the same ...

A Simple Turn Reveals a 1,500-Year-Old Secret on Roman Glass

Dec. 16, 2025 A museum visit sparked a revelation when a Roman glass cup was turned around and its overlooked markings came into focus. These symbols, once dismissed as decoration, appear to be workshop ...

Living Cells May Generate Electricity from Motion

Dec. 16, 2025 Cells may generate their own electrical signals through microscopic membrane motions. Researchers show that active molecular processes can create voltage spikes similar to those used by neurons. ...

AI Found a Way to Stop a Virus Before It Enters Cells

Dec. 15, 2025 Researchers discovered a hidden molecular “switch” that herpes viruses rely on to invade cells. By combining AI, simulations, and lab experiments, they identified and altered a single amino acid ...

New Orbital Clue Reveals How Hot Jupiters Really Formed

Dec. 15, 2025 Hot Jupiters were once cosmic oddities, but unraveling how they moved so close to their stars has remained a stubborn mystery. Scientists have long debated whether these giants were violently flung ...

Giant Sea Monsters Lived in Rivers at the End of the Dinosaur Age

Dec. 15, 2025 Giant mosasaurs, once thought to be strictly ocean-dwelling predators, may have spent their final chapter prowling freshwater rivers alongside dinosaurs and crocodiles. A massive tooth found in North ...

Astronomers Watched a Sleeping Neutron Star Roar Back to Life

Dec. 14, 2025 Astronomers tracked a decade of dramatic changes in P13, a neutron star undergoing supercritical accretion. Its X-ray luminosity rose and fell by factors of hundreds while its rotation rate ...

Webb Finds a Hidden Atmosphere on a Molten Super-Earth

Dec. 14, 2025 Webb’s latest observations reveal a hellish world cloaked in an unexpected atmosphere: TOI-561 b, an ultra-hot rocky planet racing around its star in under 11 hours. Despite being blasted by ...

A Silent Ocean Pandemic Is Wiping out Sea Urchins Worldwide

Dec. 12, 2025 A sudden, unexplained mass die-off is decimating sea urchins around the world, including catastrophic losses in the Canary Islands. Key reef-grazing species are reaching historic lows, and their ...

Stressed Rats Keep Returning to Cannabis and Scientists Know Why

Dec. 11, 2025 Rats with naturally high stress levels were far more likely to self-administer cannabis when given access. Behavioral testing showed that baseline stress hormones were the strongest predictor of ...

This Rare Earthquake Did Everything Scientists Hoped to See

Dec. 16, 2025 A rare, ultra-long earthquake in Myanmar revealed that mature faults can deliver their full force directly to the surface. The discovery could mean stronger shaking near faults like California’s ...

Anxiety and Insomnia Linked to Sharp Drops in Key Immune Cells

Dec. 15, 2025 Natural killer cells act as the immune system’s rapid-response team, but the stress of anxiety and insomnia may be quietly thinning their ranks. A study of young women in Saudi Arabia found that ...

Researchers Find How Plants Survive Without Sunlight or Sex

Dec. 14, 2025 The study reveals how Balanophora plants function despite abandoning photosynthesis and, in some species, sexual reproduction. Their plastid genomes shrank dramatically in a shared ancestor, yet the ...

Researchers Identify Viral Suspects That Could Be Fueling Long COVID

Dec. 14, 2025 Scientists are uncovering a new possibility behind long COVID’s stubborn symptoms: hidden infections that awaken or emerge alongside SARS-CoV-2. Evidence is mounting that viruses like Epstein-Barr ...

Ozempic May Offer a Surprising Bonus Benefit for Brain Health

Dec. 13, 2025 A new analysis suggests that people with type 2 diabetes who use GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, Trulicity or Victoza may be less likely to develop epilepsy than those taking DPP-4 inhibitors. ...

AI Finds a Surprising Monkeypox Weak Spot That Could Rewrite Vaccines

Dec. 12, 2025 Researchers used AI to pinpoint a little-known monkeypox protein that provokes strong protective antibodies. When the team tested this protein as a vaccine ingredient in mice, it produced a potent ...

New Discovery Offers Real Hope for Rare Genetic Disease

Dec. 12, 2025 Scientists discovered that certain gene changes allow cells to function even when frataxin, the protein lost in Friedreich’s ataxia, is missing. Experiments in worms, human cells, and mice revealed ...

Ghost Particles Slip Through Earth and Spark a Hidden Atomic Reaction

Dec. 12, 2025 Scientists have managed to observe solar neutrinos carrying out a rare atomic transformation deep underground, converting carbon-13 into nitrogen-13 inside the SNO+ detector. By tracking two faint ...

Scientists Find Dark Chocolate Ingredient That Slows Aging

Dec. 12, 2025 Scientists have uncovered a surprising link between dark chocolate and slower aging. A natural cocoa compound called theobromine was found in higher levels among people who appeared biologically ...

New Fossils in Qatar Reveal a Tiny Sea Cow Hidden for 21 Million Years

Dec. 12, 2025 Fossils from Qatar have revealed a small, newly identified sea cow species that lived in the Arabian Gulf more than 20 million years ago. The site contains the densest known collection of fossil sea ...

This 15 Minute Hepatitis C Test Could Change Everything

Dec. 11, 2025 Northwestern scientists have created the fastest-ever hepatitis C diagnostic, delivering accurate results in only 15 minutes. The test uses the DASH rapid PCR system, originally developed for COVID, ...

Uranus and Neptune Are Hiding Something Big Beneath the Blue

Dec. 10, 2025 Uranus and Neptune may not be the icy worlds we’ve long imagined. A new Swiss-led study uses innovative hybrid modeling to reveal that these planets could just as easily be dominated by rock as by ...